The tone of "Metro Manila", a brilliant neo-realist drama, is well captured in the bleakness of the opening voice-over, when our lead speaks of how a man condemned to death by hanging needs not fear drowning in the water below him if the gallows are built high enough. The film does not necessarily make for grim, nihilistic viewing, but it is, for a lot of its runtime, very real and very authentic in a rather grim place. Its director, a Briton called Sean Ellis, peppers the film with a very distinct sense that hope, even affluence, is right there, but only if you can uncover it - people seem to be able to carve out decent lives for themselves in a zone that is fairly impoverished, but getting that 'break' remains inherently elusive. It is as if you can reach out and touch the success, but it is always just far away enough.
Aside from anything else, this is a terrifically well-crafted film - its movement from one thing to another, never settling into one genre or deriving its influence from one place for too often, is a joy to behold. Indeed, the places to which "Metro Manila" ends up going nearer the end demonstrate absolutely no evidence of being there for the first half of the piece, which draws on the likes of Iranian film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and even the early films of the Italian neo-realist movement concocted on the streets of post-war Italy.
Jake Macapagal plays Oscar Ramirez, no one any more or less extraordinary than anybody else, who lives on a rudimentary farm in the Filipino countryside with his young wife Mai (Althea Vega) and infant children. Life on the farm is humble, peaceful and simple but complications to do with costs and market forces result in the Ramirez family not earning enough for their rice crop to get by for the next year. As a result, the leads are torn out of their environment and into something very different: the cauldron of the bustling capital of the titular Manila.
The transition quite literally feels like an eviction: the city is busy, noisy - men of working age huddle around noticeboards looking for working opportunities and all manner of danger and thievery are rife. It is when our family lose their remaining currency and residency through a confidence trick that things become desperate, Ellis essentially beginning the film all over again with a second initial incident to re-ignite what life in the city, this time, is all about. It forces the two parents into employment at any cost: Oscar moves into armoured van transportation and Mai into what we shall describe here as bar work.
Oscar's taking of the armoured van job moves the film into an altogether fresh direction - we are aware of the nature of life in Manila at a very grounded level, and so is Oscar. So much so that the audience and character experience them for the first time together: there exist hundreds of people living fairly desperate existences and will be aware of the vast sums of money now sharing a space with our lead. When he senses danger, we sense it with him. His work-colleague and co-rider in the truck is Ong (John Arcilla ), who seems to bury this stark and important reality in his brashness and drinking. Director Ellis' use of the juxtaposition between the classical music Ong listens to, and the rap music a suspicious car of thugs which keeps tailing them blare out, speaks volumes for the contrast we entrust to be true at the time, although is cleverly deceptive for reasons I will not reveal.
Likewise, Mai's position at a local nightspot outlet she must undertake to help with the family finances enables Ellis to break-down certain stereotypes which have become synonymous with young Asian women from this part of the world. Gone is the 'love-you-long-time' cliché; in its place, a very cold composition of the character in her underwear amongst a bevy of other young women staring off into space as she, one assumes, realises this is what she must do to get by. Mai and the other women are not photogenic backdrops to a film about somebody else - Ellis has really got under the skin of who she is and why she is there.
Reading about the production of the film, from the moment Ellis got the inspiration for the piece by looking at two armoured guards having an argument beside a truck during a trip to the Philippines, right the way through to the eight month edit process by way of shooting on a shoestring budget with no real money in a language he didn't speak, it is to everyone's credit that "Metro Manila" is as good as it is. The film is unnerving, heart-wrenching and thoroughly involving; right the way up to its chilling final few scenes and is thoroughly recommended.
